After supper the dress was finished, the pattern for the next one discussed, and then the Sintons went home.  Elnora gathered her treasures.  When she started upstairs she stopped.  “May I kiss you good-night, mother?” she asked lightly.

“Never mind any slobbering,” said Mrs. Comstock.  “I should think you’d lived with me long enough to know that I don’t care for it.”

“Well, I’d love to show you in some way how happy I am, and how I thank you.”

“I wonder what for?” said Mrs. Comstock.  “Mag Sinton chose that stuff and brought it here and you pay for it.”

“Yes, but you seemed willing for me to have it, and you said you would help me if I couldn’t pay all.”

“Maybe I did,” said Mrs. Comstock.  “Maybe I did.  I meant to get you some heavy dress skirts about Thanksgiving, and I still can get them.  Go to bed, and for any sake don’t begin mooning before a mirror, and make a dunce of yourself.”

Mrs. Comstock picked up several papers and blew out the kitchen light.  She stood in the middle of the sitting-room floor for a time and then went into her room and closed the door.  Sitting on the edge of the bed she thought for a few minutes and then suddenly buried her face in the pillow and again heaved with laughter.

Down the road plodded Margaret and Wesley Sinton.  Neither of them had words to utter their united thought.

“Done!” hissed Wesley at last.  “Done brown!  Did you ever feel like a bloomin’, confounded donkey?  How did the woman do it?”

“She didn’t do it!” gulped Margaret through her tears.  “She didn’t do anything.  She trusted to Elnora’s great big soul to bring her out right, and really she was right, and so it had to bring her.  She’s a darling, Wesley!  But she’s got a time before her.  Did you see Kate Comstock grab that money?  Before six months she’ll be out combing the Limberlost for bugs and arrow points to help pay the tax.  I know her.”

“Well, I don’t!” exclaimed Sinton, “she’s too many for me.  But there is a laugh left in her yet!  I didn’t s’pose there was.  Bet you a dollar, if we could see her this minute, she’d be chuckling over the way we got left.”

Both of them stopped in the road and looked back.

“There’s Elnora’s light in her room,” said Margaret.  “The poor child will feel those clothes, and pore over her books till morning, but she’ll look decent to go to school, anyway.  Nothing is too big a price to pay for that.”

“Yes, if Kate lets her wear them.  Ten to one, she makes her finish the week with that old stuff!”

“No, she won’t,” said Margaret.  “She’ll hardly dare.  Kate made some concessions, all right; big ones for her—­if she did get her way in the main.  She bent some, and if Elnora proves that she can walk out barehanded in the morning and come back with that much money in her pocket, an armful of books, and buy a turnout like that, she proves that she is of some consideration,